Danielson family will leave the grocery business but not Oregon City

COLIN MINER/SPECIAL TO THE OREGONIANCraig Danielson (right) talks with customers and an employee, Joyce, who declined to provide her last name, after the announcement that his family is getting out of the grocery business. "What I am going to miss is the people contact," Danielson said. "It's like saying goodbye to family.""I've known all my life I would be in the grocery business," Craig Danielson says, sitting in his small office above the meat department in the supermarket that bears his name.

"My father was in the business. My uncles were in the business. My grandfather was in the business. The hardest part is being the one who is deciding it's no longer time to be in the business."

Earlier this month, the 61-year-old Danielson decided that after 100 years the Danielson family would be getting out of the grocery business and selling the store to Safeway, which plans to tear it down for a new market.

"From the moment I was old enough to work, I worked in the store," Danielson remembers. "I cleaned bathrooms. I sorted bottles. I did whatever I was told, whatever was needed."

For Danielson, that work originally happened at what had been Helzer's Market on Washington Street in Oregon City. His family bought the store in 1959, when he was 11 years old.

By that point, his family had been in the grocery business for 50 years.

His grandfather, John Alfred Danielson, a Swedish cabinetmaker who moved to Oregon around the turn of the 20th century, had opened his first store -- a small market in Colton -- in 1909 after consulting with his minister about possible locations.

John Alfred Danielson ran the store with his three sons -- Craig's dad, Gil; Norm; and Val -- who not only learned the basics but figured out things such as using an engine and belts to bring artificial lighting into the store.

"My grandfather also taught them the importance of being involved with the community," Danielson says. "I've met people over the years who have told me how there were times the only way they were able put food on the table was because my grandfather had extended them credit."

In 1937, the sons bought the business from their dad and four years later started to diversify when they bought a hardware store in Washougal, Wash., that Norm would run. Nine years after that, they built a frozen food plant in Oregon City.

It wasn't always smooth sailing. Five years after buying the store -- in 1964 -- heavy rains sent the Willamette River over its banks, flooding the streets of Oregon City and filling the store with 11 feet of water, destroying all the inventory and blowing out all the windows.

"They had to travel around in boats scooping cans out of the water," Danielson says.

The family rebuilt the store, and Gil became more involved in the life of Oregon City, serving as mayor in the early 1970s.

Meanwhile, Danielson graduated from Willamette University in 1970 and served as a commissioned officer in the Navy. When he returned to Oregon City, the company had expanded, notably opening a 35,000-square-foot store in Gladstone.

In 1974, Danielson and the family decided they were ready for a second store in Oregon City and purchased the land that would become the Hilltop Mall. The company eventually grew to 11 stores.

And as the company grew, so did their community involvement -- donating to schools, staging events such as the annual Fire Safety Fair at Hilltop Mall.

"Education helps people expand their horizons, their quality of life," says Danielson. "And the more you help people, the more they are able to help their children and the more that benefits the community. And we become better because the community is better."

Danielson says that the family's hope was that at one point they would become a $100 million chain.

"It didn't quite work out that way," he says.

Danielson doesn't think it was one specific thing that led to the family's decision to get out of the grocery business.

There was the decision in 1986 to split the stores -- with Norm getting those in Washington, Danielson's dad running the Oregon stores, and Val working with both. There were the changing expectations of what supermarkets were, from the place to buy food to the Fred Meyer model of one-stop shopping.

"It became harder to hold it all together," Danielson says.

In 1996, Oregon City flooded again.

"It's amazing how those 100-year floods seem to happen around every 30 years," Danielson says with a smile.

The store on Washington, the location of their first Oregon City store, again filled with water.

"This time we realized it would be just too expensive to rebuild," he says. "And we knew Willamette Falls Hospital was looking for more space, and we were able to reach a deal with them, allowing them to turn the space into their health and education center."

And as it came time for more stores to be renovated and upgraded, Danielson and his family realized the economics made it difficult.

Starting in 2001, they started to close or sell more of their stores. Five would end up being sold to Safeway. Their store in Gladstone was essentially donated to the school district, which turned it into the Gladstone Center for Children and Families.

"Closing a store is never easy," Danielson says. "Especially when you've been a part of the community. But you also have to be able to make the right business decision."

Danielson says that while the decision to sell their last store to Safeway marks the end of their time as grocers, they will still be a part of Oregon City. Danielsons will close in March, and Safeway will open in 2011.

"We have our real estate business. This is our home," Danielson says.

In all, he says, the experience is bittersweet.

"What I'm not going to miss are the calls at two in the morning telling me the freezer unit's not working and the ice cream is getting warm or it's one of those rare days and there's a lot of snow in the parking lot and we needed to figure out what to do," he says.

"What I am going to miss is the people contact. The day-to-day seeing people, customers and employees. It's like saying goodbye to family."